ST Forum to be used in schools to teach National Education
September 9th, 2009 | 
Author: From our Correspondent
In another move to extend its influence to Singapore students, the Straits Times will be promoting the use of letters published in its forum page as teaching materials for English studies and National Education in primary and secondary schools. (read article here)
The Straits Times’ fourth annual Teachers Forum will be held on 24 September to “show how articles can be used to teach English, social studies as well as national education.” It will be split into primary and secondary school sections.
During the Forum, teachers will share with one another the use of media articles as a dynamic, relevant source for teaching.
The forum will begin with two plenary sessions on the benefits of using “authentic” materials like newspapers to develop “critical thinking.”
It remains to be seen how the one-sided spins and propaganda of the Straits Times can be used to promote “critical thinking” among students.
The ST Forum is highly controlled by the paper’s editors who screened every letter sent by readers carefully to ensure that those critical of the government or its leaders do not get published.
The boundaries for permissible debate are also delineated clearly: while “sycophantic praises” (from PRs and foreigners) and “constructive criticisms” from (the usual ghost writers like Lionel De Souza) are most welcomed, any remote slurs on the nation’s institutions will not be entertained.
In the complete absence of an alternative source of information to compare with, students will be hard pressed to discern for themselves the authenticity of the reports carried by the state media.
All the print media in Singapore are owned by a single company – the Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) whose Chairman is almost always an ex-PAP minister.
Its current Chairman is Dr Tony Tan, an ex-DPM who took over from Mr Lim Kim San in 2005, another former minister.
With their rice bowls in the hands of their political masters, ST journalists seldom dared to venture out of the official line to criticize the government. Needless to say, there is very little objective or investigative journalism found in the Singapore media.
Years of relentless propaganda and some might say “brainwashing” have made Singaporeans one of the most politically apathetic and ignorant citizenry in the world.
Since the government is “right” all the time, few seldom question the actions and decisions made. As such, there is dearth of public interest in current affairs.
The latest attempt by Straits Times to make its presence felt in Singapore schools may arise out of deep-seated concerns and fears that the young generation who spent more time on the internet than reading papers will get influenced by the plethora of alternative news media in Singapore’s blogosphere which are mostly critical of the establishment.
The Singapore media is ranked a miserable 141st position on the latest World Press Freedom Index conducted yearly by international media watchgroup Reporters without Borders, just above North Korea, Burma and Zimbabwe.
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Posted in Editorial
Great. Our kids shd be exposed more to the real world. Let them see reality before they get to travel upon working. They shd be able to discern the ideal(utopia) and the practical.
Good and bad is only relative if one can’t compare amongst countries and nations.
Let them see what & where paradise is and where & how the cesspool is. Open their eyes; make them thinkers. Most importantly let them judge for themselves and see how others’ livilihood is impacted for good or bad if they make the no-return right or wrong choice in life.
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Dear Alfred Ho:
I personally find it amusing that your comment does not follow the article’s content. Did you even read the entire article?
The article is arguing that the ST Forum is state-controlled and heavily biased, and its use in school will extends PAP’s influence on our young.
If we really want to expose our kids to the real world, we should be making them read a variety of world media like Time, FEER, or the Asian Sentinel.
We should be exposing them to how govts of other countries do things differently, and letting them form conclusions on their own.
We should be organizing field trips to Chinatown and housing estates to expose them to homeless old people who have to pick cans for a living, and making our kids help them for their community service.
That is the reality that they so desperately need to see.
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Critical thinking in sgforum ? More like brainwashing for for Pappy thinking ! Since when political and Lee criticism are accepted in sgforum ?
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@ Exposer.
uhh. Did u mean to say ST forum? instead of SGforums??
and yes btw. ST forum is full of shit propaganda and whatnots from PAPPY goons.
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I am not worried.
If you know what the young are doing these days.
You won’t be too.
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Ace Kindred Chong and co’s articles gonna become a teaching materials for the young? Oh my god! Great move by our govt! In no time Spore will be full of dogs wagging their tails regardless of whatever shit they are fed… Singapore will be at the pinnacle of their success…
I cant wait for this day to happen…
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@ wow:
That’s the Pri and Sec school students we’re talking about, you sure you referring to the right young uns?
Anyways, countering this is simple, but everything lies in the Teacher. A disclaimer or something to always remind the young ones our NewsPaper is not the only source of information is always a good start.
I saw the real world by End Sec 4, why shouldn’t these kids start earlier?
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i am not worried,esp in this internet world.
i was once a avid reader of ST, believing in whatever it says but still i have freed myself from its grasp and began to think independently. i’m sure the kids are smarter than me, they should be able to think independently too if they put an effort to it.
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I would rather schools use a variety of articles, including those from this website and the TOC, to give different, well-argued perspectives. That would be helping students’ critical thinking.
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If the kids go home and talk rubbish from their forum class (corrected by their internet savvy parents at home), the teachers could all look PRETTY STUPID the next day under cross-examination and NO MORE RESPECT of a source of learning, MOE would have to hire thousands of part-time spin doctors to spin lies over lies for this subject.
What would be the morale consequence for learning and respect for all the other subject teachers?
When you play with fire and it burns out of control, you know who gets burn right?? You reap what you sow – deservingly.
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“Ace Kindred Chong and co’s articles gonna become a teaching materials for the young?”
Surely these Pappy clowns’ articles must be included as a model of how not to write article that turn one into mindless zombies which surely get Fail grade by international standard.
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Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
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It seems that we have our own “tin foil hat” problems. While I would agree that our MSMs are on the conservative side and I do feel that its really high time we introduce more cynicism into our media practises. Students are also taught to see both sides of the coin even if it is done through using articles about other countries and other democracies.
JC students for example have to do assignments regarding human rights (even in local terms).
I do remember an incident from my uni days abroad. A housemate asked me what “politically correct” meant. Being too politically correct is a problem that is recognised as such in places like Australia for example. One does not get a sense of it here.
In any case, its not like there are no biases abroad. Fox news for example is notorious for being a gahment mouth piece. I will not go into papers like Utusan and the others.
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Hi csl,
There is no such thing as a fair and independent media.
Both Fox and Utusan have competitors. The problem with SPH is that it has none.
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Admin
“The problem with SPH is that it has none”
Sorri mate. I disagree.
This is the digital age. All broadband comes with CNN, BBC, Australian Network, China International (Eng), etc., with minimal cost as part & parcel of the package.
I have given up hope on the Western media when I found that they literally do a cut and pasts esp CNN on the Tibet riot to maliagn China (incidentally a yellow race challenging the white men economic supremacy is quite untenable if you appreciate history).
So?
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Douglas Chia on Thu, 10th Sep 2009 2:55 pm …greetings…
CNN, BBC, Australian Network, China International (Eng), etc. dealt mainly with foreign news, how often they cover Singapore news in depth with any precision too? ST isn’t big enough to have roam global journalists to cover news in every corner of the world.
For local news on socio-political front on Singapore, it is the same diet from SPH which some don’t find it exactly the flavour of the day or the month at all.
I disagree with you on this one.
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//Douglas
how did you know that/
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good point admin,
I do wonder if our market is capable of keeping 2 news media content providers. When SPH ran their own TV stations, both Mediacrap (I hardly watch their homemade programs) and them barely kept the act up.
The competition did make programs very interesting and some improvement was made. Until they merged and things went back to square one.
CNA throws more resources into their news procurement but is hardly a competitor since its part of Mediacrap. For one they hardly do enough for local current affairs commentary if they even do any. Most of their local related programming is concentrated on social issues when they could have done more.
As for fair and independant-”ness”, media tends to take sides when it comes to issues. I tend to see if they are actually critical of their own governments. From what I have seen so far, the BBC and the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Company) are both fully government funded and they produce some of the most compelling views of their own government that would put the likes of Fox in shame.
I do not blame Utusan for its present state after all its a paper funded by UMNO itself. Fox is a privatised broadcaster which was blatantly aligned with the Bush administration to spread pro-war messages. Media over there tend to be left or right so I guess the viewers just have to like what they see to choose which they want. While sadly unless you have cable tv @ home and like me you like Taiwanese news there is not much of a choice.
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